Rooted in Tradition, Growing in Innovation

On a warm, sunny day, it’s not easy to find a parking spot at Plum Creek Farm Market & Creamery. People flock to the site for fresh, seasonal produce, homemade baked goods, sandwiches, ice cream and soft pretzels. The produce is fresh, the fare is delicious, but what is most appealing is the heartfelt hospitality customers find there.

The Plum Creek business is a success story rooted in the heritage of the family-owned businesses of Kendra (Rutt) Zimmerman and her husband, Keith.

For years, Kendra’s parents, Mary and Nevin Rutt, sold produce from a roadside wagon in Bernville, Pennsylvania. What started as an additional income stream to supplement their cash crop operation became a thriving business as the Rutts became well-known in the community for their farm fresh products and friendly service. 

“Nevin loved to farm and grow things, and initially, just needed a way to get rid of the excess produce,” Keith recalls. “We had casually talked about what his plans were with the produce business because it had grown significantly from selling a little bit of produce to selling quite a bit.”

Then tragedy struck. Nevin was killed in an accident in 2010. 

The loss of Kendra’s dad changed the trajectory of the Rutts’ produce business. For two years, Kendra’s mother and two young teenage brothers struggled to keep the business going. When Kendra’s older brother took over the farm in 2012, he put up chicken houses and stepped away from the produce business.

Meanwhile, Kendra and Keith were busy working and raising their four children. Keith was part of a flourishing hardware and manufacturing business founded by his grandfather. “I worked on the retail side, on driveline parts and components, and on the manufacturing side. Most of what I learned about business and about working with employees and customers comes from that experience,” he says.

Although Keith was getting an invaluable hands-on education in managing a business, the entrepreneurial streak that ran strong in his family drove him to look for a new challenge. He had long dreamed of expanding the Rutts’ produce business. That dream was about to become a reality. 

“Kendra and I were kicking around the idea of restarting the produce business,” says Keith. “So, at the end of the 2014, we bought a 52-acre farm on Plum Creek Road. In 2015, we bought a used New Holland tractor and had our first summer of growing produce. We started by selling it from a roadside wagon. That was the beginning of our produce business. But I quickly discovered that it's not easy to make a living or pay for a farm growing produce. It takes a lot of produce.”

The following year, Keith and Kendra bought another property a few miles from the farm. It was a nursery that had gone out of business and sat abandoned for years. The property was overgrown and in rough shape, but there was a small building that had functioned as a retail space for the nursery. It was close to the road -- an ideal spot for a farm market. They cleaned up the property, patched up the building, and opened for business. 

“At the end of 2016, I quit my job and jumped into the business with both feet,” says Keith. “My sister and her husband, Audry and Ken Nolt, joined us as business partners. We knew that the farm market needed to grow beyond where it was an order to make it financially viable. We had lots of customers. They were buying produce, but my mind always goes to, ‘We have customers. What else can we sell them to complement the sales of the produce?’”  

They soon had an answer. 

Many of their customers had been asking for ice cream, so in the spring of 2017, the farm market opened with soft serve ice cream and soft pretzels in addition to produce from their farm. The business quickly outgrew the 1,500-square foot building. 

“By the end of the year, we started talking about the next steps,” says Keith. “That summer when we opened, it started with a bang. Looking at the line of people, I thought, ‘What if we had some sandwiches we could sell them, not just their dessert, but their dinner, too. They’re here; what else would they buy?

Encouraged by their success, ambitious plans were put into place to build a new 12,000- square foot building, complete with a larger farm market, modern kitchen facilities, more ice cream selections, a broader selection of food, and indoor and outdoor seating. 

By the winter of 2019, the old building was torn down and construction started on a modern new building. “We opened in April 2020, right in the middle of COVID,” says Keith. “We were afraid we weren’t going to have any customers, but we had more customers than we knew what to do with.”

Today, Plum Creek Farm Market & Creamery offers a wide variety of food products. Most of the fruits and vegetables are grown locally; many come from their own farm. In addition, the farm market features a deli, refrigerated section, freezer section, bulk food items as well as canned items and homemade baked goods. The Creamery offers a wide variety of ice cream flavors, soft pretzels, sandwiches and breakfast entrees. 

Fresh from the farm
Much of the produce comes from their Plum Creek farm, just a few miles down the road from the farm market. “It’s a closed loop system,” says Keith. “We sell what we grow. The farm depends on the retail market and the market depends on the farm.”

Kendra's younger brother, Austin, manages the farm with help from the Zimmermans’ two sons, Karson and Kaleb. Kendra’s mother takes charge of the farm’s fresh cut flowers, making the bouquets sold at the farm market every morning. 

Over the past 10 years, the farm has been upgraded as well. The soil has been improved with guidance from an agronomist, and they are focusing on using cover crops for erosion control and to enhance the soil structure. “We’re probably yielding three times as much sweet corn on the same amount of land as we did when we first started,” says Keith.

Business success is predicated on making thoughtful decisions, so Keith, Kendra and the Plum Creek team work together on planning. 

“At the end of every season, we sit down and go through what the farm grew, what we sold and the dollars that came off that. We look at the input costs in the farm side and what our customers ask for. And then we decide what we're planning to grow for next season.

“We intend to continue to farm, but sometimes that means shifting what you’re doing,” Keith continues. “There was a point where we grew most of what we sold. While it would be nice to say we grow everything we sell, the dollars and cents of it just don't add up. We’re going to try and trim some of the labor costs by sourcing some of the smaller, more commodity products. We can buy them more economically than we can grow them.”

Plum Creek works with a wholesale distributor who shops the local produce auctions so throughout the summer, they can buy locally grown produce. Peaches, apples, pears and other fruit come from nearby orchards.

“We want to provide our customers with local products, but sometimes it makes more sense for us to buy than to grow our own. We plan to continue to grow strawberries and sweet corn because we pick them fresh every morning. We have shale soil that is good for growing melons so the vine crops like watermelons and cantaloupes do well for us. We also grow our own mums and pumpkins and fresh cut flowers.”

Business growth
“We still sell a lot of local produce, and we often sell out of it, but the actual produce sales have become a smaller piece percentagewise of the business,” says Keith.

From working in his family’s business, Keith learned that diversification is one of the keys to sustainability. “I'm a believer in a fair amount of diversity in a business. We had that in the family business I grew up in. Over the years, rarely did all the business units do really well at the same time, but also, rarely did they all do poorly. To some extent we're replicating that model here. The different things that we do puts more legs on the stool to help it stay balanced.”

With a crew of over 70 employees that includes the Zimmerman’s four children and many other family members, the Plum Creek business is still expanding. 

What’s next?  More diversity, of course.

A new venture, led by Ken Nolt, offers frozen soft pretzels is poised to expand nationally. 

Keith and his son are developing software that will aid businesses like theirs manage their operations more efficiently. “We created it initially for our own use,” says Keith.” In the next couple of years, our plan is to have a suite of software tools for small retailers like us.”

Keith invented a pump for their soft serve ice cream machines that allows them to use real fruit and other ingredients to create custom flavors. They are prepping to take that to market for other ice cream shops to buy and use in their machines.

Plum Creek is carrying on the legacy of the Rutt family produce business combined with the entrepreneurial spirt of the Zimmerman family business. It’s been a challenge and an opportunity that is building a new family legacy. 

“It’s been a lot of fun, but it's also been a lot of hard work,” says Keith. “It’s a blessing to be able to work with family and having all our kids in the business. It’s not been without its challenges, but we found a way to make it work. God has blessed us with wonderful customers and an amazing team of employees, and we give Him all the praise and honor for the growth and success we've experienced!”